Juggling with multiple risks

Multiple disasters can have a cumulative impact leading to great human and financial loss. The awareness of all possible risks is of fundamental importance. A good example is the extent of the damage caused by the Kobe earthquake that hit Japan in April 2001. “They basically designed buildings to withstand typhoons, but not earthquakes which have opposite engineering requirements; a rigid structure versus a flexible structure,” says Kevin Fleming, a researcher at GFZ, the German research centre for geosciences, in Potsdam, “and not considering all the interactions is at best inefficient and at worst counter-productive.”

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